2 Kings 17:27-34

27The king of Assyria replied, ‘You took some Israelite priests away from Samaria as prisoners. Send one of them back to live there. Then he can teach the people what the god of that country wants them to do.’

28So they sent back one of the priests that they had caught and taken away to Assyria. He went to live in Bethel. He taught the people how to worship the Lord properly.

29But the people of each nation that had gone to live in Samaria made their own idols to worship. They put them at the altars that the Israelites had built on the hills. They did this in each town where they lived.

30The people from Babylon made idols of the god called Succoth-Benoth. The people from Cuthah made idols of the god called Nergal. The people from Hamath made idols of the god called Ashima.

31The people from Avva made idols of their gods called Nibhaz and Tartak. The people from Sepharvaim burned their children in fire as offerings to their gods, Adrammelech and Anammelech.

32The foreign people in Samaria also worshipped the Lord. They chose some of their own people to serve as priests at the altars on the hills.

33In this way, they worshipped the Lord, but they also served their own gods. They did that in the way that they had always done in their own countries. That was what they did before the Assyrians sent them to live in Samaria.

34Even today, they still do things in the same way that they have always done them. They do not truly worship the Lord. They do not obey his rules, his laws or his teaching. They do not obey the commands that the Lord gave to the descendants of Jacob. Jacob was the man that the Lord gave a new name to. He gave him the name ‘Israel’.